Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1887-05-26

lures and Some Of THAR o~ccupants.
InNew York the business structures
tain q greater height than anywhere
else in the world. Some are $50 feet to
the roof and others 225 feet to the ton
Of the towers which surmount them;
$50 feet is much higher than the ordi-
nary church steeple. and 225 feet is
much higher than any in the United
States. with the exception OF perhaps q
score Of sacred edifices.
The Produce Exchange tower or cam
panile. looms 225 feet above ancient
Bowling Green. and that on the Western
Union Building, on higher ground,
seems to reach nearly the same altitude.
The new Petroleum Exchange, to be
finished next, will cost half a million
Of dollars and will be a much finer
building than the Stock Exchange.
Every resource is exhausted in the
construction of these palatial business
buildings; their foundations are laid
forty feet below the level Of the street
and the masonry is as solid as that Of
an old Roman aqueduct. Where the
soil seems to be yielding piles are driven
down; they are from thirty to forty feet
in length, being the trunks Of trees
brought from New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia. The Produce Exchange rests
on 15,437 of these trees, SO that the
brokers are trading on the top Of an old
forest.
In these fine structures there are
usually two completed-stories below the
street, and above this rise eight or ten
stories more. Rents are enormous.
The buildings pay from 4 to 7 per cent.
and in one case at least, / understand,
10 per cent. on the money invested.
The well-known Mills building on Broad
Street cost 20, 700, 900 Thirteen build
ings were torn down to secure its site.
1t wa erected by ID. o. Mills, once a
hack driver and now worth $40, 100000.
The total amount Of rent derived from
this magnificent building approximates
$500, 900 a year.
Here are the offices Of c. P. Hunting
ton, d. 0. Mills and other California
and transcontinental magnates, as well
as such bankers and brokers as the
Seligmans, Henry Clews, President
James Smith, Of the Stock Exchange;
the Kissams, brothers of Mrs. William
II. Vanderbilt, and others. Henry
Clews, l believe, pays IS a square foot
for his SPLENDID offices, the finest and
most elegantly fitted up Of any broker
OF stocks or grain in the metropolis,
and which cost him about 500, 900 a year.
This enormous rent does not seem large
to a man who made 1000, 900 last
year.
The halls in some of these commercial
palaces are s wide as some of the
streets Of Boston or old Italian cities,
and the stairs could accommodate
twenty men abreast. In some of the
larger structures there are six or eight
elevators constantly ascending and de-
scending. and a glance downward
seems like looking into the bottomless
pit. The Produce Exchange has ten.
The most costly Of these commercial
buildings is that of n well-known life
insurance company on Broadway near
Cedar street, which originally cost
"a, 000,0 600, and a recent extension cost
Ing another million. The signal service
corps here occupies a tower on the roof,
and the ~janitor has another, and his
children have a playground an acre in
extent 125 feet above roaring Broadway.
The company provides for tenants a law
of 1000 volumes, and the Insur-
ance Club and Down Town Law Club
their rooms there. The president
the company, by the way, receives
. salary of $4,000 a year.
The building Of a well-known insur-
ance company on Nassau street is par
ticularly notable for its architectural
and artistic splendor. The marble nails
are wainscoted with marble; the princi-
rooms are finished in mahogany.
The Chamber Of Commerce has its
rooms there, with a picture gallery Of
more than sixty merchants, dating back
to the days of the Colonial government.
Some Of the more ancient business
worthless wear the small clothes, em-
broidered waistcoats and the neckcloth
Of the quaint old days of New York,
when such splendid business structures
as this would have appeared sheer mad
Two of these portraits r of
Alexander Hamilton and John Sherman,
former Secretaries of the Treasury. In
this building, By the way, ex-President
Arthur had fine offices, and next to MIN
in the last presidential campaign GEN
eral Benjamin F. Butler had his
quarters. Another fine structure is
the United Bank Building, at the cor
ner of Wall street and Broadway, where
General Grant once had his office; it
was in the basement of this Building
that Ferdinand Ward concocted his
gigantic and now historic swindles.
On n Of the upper floors Roscoe
Conkling has his offices, and on the
seventh floor is the new financial power,
Alfred Sully, keen, quick and scholarly.
Further up Broadway is the great
Western Union building, with its I'M
slightly mansard roof, and in one Of its
offices sits Jay Gould, the Saturn Of